Paranoia -- One Slip, I'm a Goner

At the moment I'm alone. Looking over a barren land, I see the sky a weird reddish color, kind of like you get with Hipstamatic's Bettie XL lens. Of course I'm displeased with that, preferring the exuberance of Lucifer VI with the more realistic tones of Ina's 1969.

It's a day for reflection and a little relaxation, I hope, although the dangers are still very real. A few of you have asked about my bout with Paranoia. So I shall answer. First, I shall climb a nearby promontory -- inching toward the top, up I go, slipping occasionally -- and, OK, an hour later, here I am, looking over an alien vista. Now I shall proclaim!

In the last 24 hours I've been beset with enemies, dimensions of Paranoia that were very weird and very frightening. I found myself in something like the Baskervilles' moors. I'll just tell you one thing, and I'm putting this out there free: Avoid moors, glens, dales, valleys, depressions, bogs, and fens ... If you can't find a high place, go up medium height, definitely not low.

At it happens, water is generally low. Which is part of the problem. Because every variety of pest, vermin, and wildlife -- including the dangerous stuff -- goes there. Now ask yourself, what's the one thing something wants if it has water to drink? Yes, something to eat. As it is in the everyday world, so it is in the psychic realm of Paranoia. The low places are dangerous, and you'd make a great meal.

Well, I opened myself up to all this danger! The entire thing was a disaster, fire ants, fire snakes, the fire variation of every cursed creature ever cursed with horrid life. I made a vow, No mercy for the evil and ugly! To the extent, then, that I could fulfill it -- locally here -- I brought down a serious cudgel on the heads of many creatures. While sustaining bites to my left leg, my right leg, and both arms. If I'm a little grumpy, that's why. One slip and I'm a goner!

Now on higher ground, I look out over the vast wasteland and proclaim: My mind is in high gear. I see the synapses of my brain very much alive, running over both theory and practicum, concerning the things of Paranoia. What a rush! Not just to feel Paranoia's strong drive in real time, but to behold (in 3D) a simultaneous understanding! Soon I shall crash and sleep, but not in a valley!

Here's three things about Paranoia to think about:

1) Paranoia is a response accrued from the realities of life that thwart our desires. We've gone from magical enemies (demons) to the more realistic, 'Everything's out to get me.' Our thinking may be distorted but at least there's evidence you can point to.

2) At the root of Paranoia is the fear of death. 'What I'm afraid of will eventually kill me.' The unrealistic side of it is, You're not dead yet, so you must be doing something right. Bring in that aspect of things to calm the paranoid side.

3) You wouldn't have Paranoia if you dwelt in your natural being. This goes with the fear of death. Our huge concern for our fate represents a duality split, our natural focus being off. Two minds going two ways, as "para" and "noia" mean two minds side by side, like parallel. With a greater drive toward mental unity, Paranoia would have to work harder to drive me. Obviously I'm not saying be happy and die. I'm still going to look both ways before crossing the street. With understanding, though, and getting back our unity, we have the wherewithal to live more peacefully.

All that said, Get me the hell out of this terrible place! I realize fire snakes have to eat, too, and aren't particularly picky. The key for me not to get eaten is to avoid them. OK, easy enough, no more valleys. If I see a valley coming, I'll stay up here on the hill till they're asleep.

As I contemplated this wisdom, I witnessed a sudden flash vision, in Hipstamatic tones alternating between the subdued haziness of Adler 9009 and the golden tones of James M. Before me, I beheld Sister St. Rita of Cascia with Desi the Donkey. Desi came up and nudged me in the side, as if to tell me I had his full support. The beloved Saint was more circumspect, adding to my understanding of Paranoia. She reasoned with me how little, to this point, I had thought of my intelligence, allowing myself to become the prey and the slave of Paranoia. With her mild upbraiding, I felt embarrassed and actually ashamed, but looked ahead to being fully calm and recollected. The vision melted away.

I'm looking ahead to a lot more. If I finally get home to stay, I'll never go roaming anywhere ever again. And I'll let Paranoia work for me, not against me. Heh heh, how about I combine my two minds, then with stereo thinking -- a little this side, a little that -- I'll be on top of every difficulty. Worth a try!

OK, I'm going to descend for a while, and try to fill my canteen. I think the fire snakes are asleep. Their evolution must have been such, indicated by the fire for light, that they sleep during the day and crawl nocturnally. Unless they want to sleep nocturnally and the fire's for warmth.

I'm hoping the biggest problem I have is filtering the water. Looking brownish/yellow as it does, it's kind of what you'd get if you photoed water and used Buckhorst H1 with Cano Cafenol and pictured the muck of Float on the edges! Whoa! When it comes to drinking water, give me something closer to Jane/Sugar every time!

A Dead Guy's Mustache -- As Close As You're Gonna Get

 CLICK PHOTO TO GET AS CLOSE AS YOU'RE GONNA GET

This guy lived and died a long time ago, maybe 100 years ago.

There's lots of maybes. Since he was a young guy in this photo, he might have lived quite a while after this, with his mustache turning old and gray and eventually falling off. Or he might have sat for this picture, caught viral pneumonia from a sick photographer and fallen dead just moments after the shutter clicked.

Either way, he's certainly dead now, and his mustache presumably is lost forever. Exhuming the body is out, not only because of the various legalities that would have to be dealt with, but because we have no idea, no clue as to his identity. The only information I've been able to glean is that he lived, had a great head of hair and mustache, and died. And that he sat for at least one photo at a photography studio called Veatch in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Cedar Falls, Iowa? Now we're making progress! Which is probably still a dead end. Of course, if you want to go for it, be my guest. I am personally going to stand down and let the poor man rest in peace. And accept it that his mustache is gone forever, and that this enlargement is as close as I'm gonna get.

Still, isn't it a tantalizing detail that ... somewhere near Cedar Falls, Iowa, in a lonely, perhaps forgotten cemetery, this mustache still rules and reigns the nether realms six feet under? For me, it changes nothing. I'm still standing down!

So barring a miracle, an identification and the knocking down of many legal barriers to exhumation, I'm as close as I'm gonna get to this great example of a flamboyant mustache.

Isn't life amazing? We try to deny it, but life always comes with limits. You see a guy with a mustache, and he passes by, usually without allowing us a super close-up. Of course the inaccessibility is greatly multiplied for guys who lived and died a hundred years ago. But thanks to photography -- a relatively recent invention -- we're able to see it in all its glory.

So today -- and today only -- you and I have this rare opportunity, a treat, the chance to zero in on this particular guy's cool mustache. Friends, feast your eyes! This is as close as anyone's gotten since he passed from this earth. And it's a chance that likely will never come again.

Your Career in Funeral Folder Photography

First, just let me say, I'm not a professional photographer. The ins and outs of photography is not my thing. I don't know a light meter from a parking meter, if there is a difference. I just happen occasionally to snap a good picture.

All that said, I have had accidental success as a photographer for funeral folders, the programs morticians hand out at their services. I don't have a good way to check the records, but my pictures of the beloved have appeared in four or five funeral folders over the years. And they've gotten good comments, too, along the lines of, "What a nice picture of him or her."

Now I'm sitting here wondering, What could I have accomplished had I set out to accomplish anything? I never did; like I said, all my photos have been accidental, pictures taken for other purposes then used later as great shots for that final day.

If only I'd made a studio and advertised, "Funeral Folder Pictures in 5 Minutes," I might be rich today! Because as vain as everyone is, they'd be breaking down the door to get the perfect shot. And there I'd be -- with my cheap cameras -- to provide it. They might look at my very modest cameras and be suspicious, and yet I've got a pretty good history to back them up. It's not how expensive you're camera is, it's the photog that gets the shots.

At other places, they arrange the family. Let's say it's for a good 50th anniversary picture. You always want the man so he looks about three foot taller. Up and down rectangular. He fills up the entire left side of the shot, top to bottom. The woman then has the right side, but her head's mostly in the bottom corner. That's a take!

Or if you're taking graduation pictures. These days, you find every rustic locale in town. Broken down cars, buildings with terrible graffiti on them, rusty trains, industrial disposal bins with fumes. The graduate lounges in front, looking fantastic in comparison. They don't have to do anything especially, just a pleasant smile. The photos always come out looking great. There's very little retouching needed; the acne never looks bad, blending in with the despicable background.

Or maybe you're taking glamor shots. These are always over the top, with a lot of shouting (mostly for effect), "Work it! Work it!," as she goes through her best moves, generally a lot of amateurish stripper-like moves, reaching for a pretend pole, etc. I've never yet seen a glamor shot that's actually any good. Give me a fresh-faced farmer's daughter up against the barn any day. You know she knows where the hay is, and she knows you know, which of course must be made while the sun shines. "That's a wrap!"

For funeral shots, all this is out. You want the person to simply relax, relax, relax -- while staying awake. If they need something to think about, I would describe the peacefulness of nature, in particular the very tall, skinny trees you see in cemeteries. Or flash slides on the wall in front of them, of milky white statues of our Lord, either in prayer at Gethsemane or leading sheep through some beautiful valley, free of mosquitoes.

If you need to speak to them further, use your gentlest voice, telling them you've admired them your whole life, noting their lives of quiet dignity, not like the common run of psychotic man. While others have run amok, they've been solid as a rock, a stone to stand for eternity, yea tall and yea wide, on a good foundation, keeping an average size grave from flying around the room.

You might speak of the horizon as bright: "Look closely at it ... Are those ducks I see? Way off in the distance ... either flying south for the winter, or north for the summer. They're definitely headed somewhere." The pictures are going great. You've very likely already gotten the perfect shot. But it doesn't hurt to secure an extra. For this, muster up whatever sincerity you have left, and assure them, "Everyone is your friend, and they wish you well. There's really nothing to hold you back -- the way the world is. We'll all be OK, you have earned your reward."

SNAP! It's good, it's in the iPhone, ready to be uploaded to the boys at the funeral home!

The Rest Is Inconsequential History

ABSTRACT: I survey the history of the American presidency and a bunch of things I happen to do. The rest is inconsequential history.

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, two of our greatest presidents, ones I have no problem remembering, indisputably made history. If they fell out of bed, it was a big deal. Especially because they spent so little time sleeping, having wars and the affairs of state to keep them awake. Their influence remains today, as they are the ones I think of first when I think of historical figures. They dwell in my consciousness, up there in my natural cloud (no Amazon or Apple needed!).

What could I say to summarize the influence of these great men? Really, time and full intelligence would fail me, were I to try. So let me just start by saying, "Two thumbs up!" on their presidencies, and, in fact, on their lives period.

Of course President Washington was our first president, which had to be a great honor. He must have been struttin' and trash talkin' all the time: "They can't compare me to nobody!" and "Suck on this, you muthas!" President Lincoln came later in the distinguished line of American chief executives, according to the encyclopedia being the 16th man to hold the highest office. No, it's not as good as Number One, naturally, but you could say "Sweet 16" ain't bad! Not bad indeed, and in some states, still legal.

So let's hear it for Washington and Lincoln! Two great guys, even though it's not February. A grateful nation doesn't forget. What they did, they did. Whether it was in battle. Washington took out the English. Lincoln took out half of America. Or in their personal lives. Washington cut down cherry trees. Lincoln split rails. Their portraits remain with us, which is how we picture them yet today: Washington standing up in a boat, Lincoln staring down the cameraman. I love it that we have actual photos of Lincoln. But back in Washington's time, no one was yet smart enough to invent the camera. Which to us today seems real duh. My brother can make a camera out of a box and a pin! True story!

OK, I'm mentioning these great men today -- Number 1 and Sweet 16 -- to put myself in their company, the company of those who make history. The biggest difference between them and me is they chose to make history hundreds of years ago, and I choose to make it now. Which I'll leave to you to judge: Their history is so long ago we're dealing in hearsay and cliches. My history is up to date, something any objective observer can currently evaluate. Personally, I think my choice is best; certainly it lends itself to greater transparency; I'm not hiding out somewhere in the obscure past, I take my stand today!

About my own history, given enough time and bandwidth, I could go on and on. Like my list of teachers. I could give you a list of most of my teachers. A list you're not likely to come up on your own, because how would you know? It's not in the encyclopedias! Or the way my preferences in life developed. It's funny, the way things go. We used to eat a bunch of wild game that Grandpa hunted. Squirrels, rabbits, coon, pheasants, turtle, possums, etc. And we didn't think anything about it. Then, sometime, suddenly, when I grew up, I decided I'd only eat store-bought food. I'm not even that much of a proponent of hunting these days. But against those who do hunt, I hold no grievance. Old fashioned people hunt, the rest of us buy. See all the history right there?

I'm making history everyday. Here's one big reason: I carry a camera, a built-in feature of my phone. Can you believe it? A camera right in my phone! I can order a pizza one minute and take a picture of it the next! Try that with an Instamatic! Here's the history: My pictures capture a moment in time, i.e., history. I like to take pictures of old windmills and the broad sides of barns. Someday when we get our wind from other sources and all the barns have been burnt down for firewood, my pictures will preserve a bygone era. Like Ansel Adams, they'll be on calendars and coffee cups.

I'm making history right now, just by passing on my memories and knowledge to the world. I can see this blog as a primary resource for researchers someday. They'll be like, "Whoa! This is some good shit!" The researchers will be in little cubicles reading it, one of them starting at the most recent stuff and the other starting at the oldest. Eventually, they'll meet in the middle, like the great Americans who drove the Golden Spike. And they'll shake hands and thank their lucky stars for me. Then they'll go out for drinks and laughs before getting up the next day and doing it all again.

History ... it's a gas. I'm signing off for today ... although history may reveal that I came back.

I'm Selling Easter Bunnies At The Craft Sale

Like I've been doing for a number of years now -- I think this must be 10 years -- I'm selling Easter bunnies at the shopping center craft sale. Thank God Easter only comes once a year, because sitting here, and of course putting up with all the crap, can be almost too much.

I'm always an optimist. Especially when it comes to religious holidays. I always think religious holidays ought to bring out the best in people. So that, say you're at a craft sale, they ought to be a lot more willing to part with their hard-earned money for whatever trifles people are selling, for their own benefit, and also because I'm helping them get more into the spirit of the holiday. But no, it's the same old crap, a big disappointment from my point of view

And then there's the craft sale business period. It's gone to hell, I think. The shopping center doesn't respect the hard work we put into crafting They don't respect crafters, period! Except for the bigger crafters, who are practically moguls compared to the rest of us, the peons. That really came out this year especially. The way they had us set up this year, of course we were down at the far end, in the vicinity of the stores that start up and shut down a few weeks later.

But here's the twist this year: They set up the moguls first, then dribble dribble dribble, you have the next top dog, then another, and so on, until you get to the true peons, the few of us with only one table each. I was right there -- those bastards -- at the very end of the line. So that by the time any customer might ever wander down as far as me, they'd most like spent all their money, or were looking like they thought they'd be mugged if they went much farther.

I'm very fortunate that I only do this one sale now in the year. Because there's nothing more unpleasant than hearing the grousing of crafters at craft sales. Which I actually caught myself joining in, because, for crying out loud, what are we, scum under people's feet? By the time you put money into your supplies, your table rental, and the entire day's time, you're lucky to make pennies on the dollar. You're sitting there like some kind of off-scouring, with squalling kids and cranky mothers who don't feel like buying them cute bunnies, etc. It's enough to drive you wacky.

But I'm focused on my own grief. My own grief keeps me very busy. Although, yes, I was listening to what everyone else was saying. About the moguls and the rest of us. That was a big topic of conversation. What I really think might be behind it, ultimately, is the old tactic of divide and conquer. Like this: The shopping center knows we hold a cudgel against them for the yearly mistreatment. But what if they divide the crafters and get us at each other's throats? Suddenly, we're not standing united and the shopping center steamrolls us. Not that standing united really has done us that much good in the past.

But take this year. If we'd been united, maybe they would've rethought the increase on table fees. Five damned dollars more! And I can't raise my prices. I'm already scraping the bottom as far as any profit goes, but in a bad economy, you tell me, is anyone going to pay top dollar, even though they're clearly worth it, for a few styrofoam bunnies? No, the morons are pinching pennies, probably saving their money for food or cable TV, which also goes up all the time.

Add to my misery the fact that I always feel I have to give them a bargain if they buy more than one. They're $5 each, OK? It's set in stone, because I can't raise the price, as I said. But if you buy two, then they're $9 total. I'm losing a whole buck everything someone wants two, which is about the same as giving the damned things away. A few twofers I can absorb. But if people knew my margin, they could wipe me out on these sale just like that! So I'm sitting there praying two things, 1) For a sale period; and, 2) Please buy them one at a time; the twofers aren't helping me...

That's the financial beef. Then there's all the rest. Like everybody and their damned cameras! You tell me: Isn't it widely known, universally known, that you don't take pictures at craft sales? It's simply not done! It's forbidden! And for very good reason. We don't want the rest of the world taking pictures, then stealing our ideas and making their own crafts at home. This is a point all of us agree on, mogul or peon. On this, in fact, it's the moguls leading the way. They go to enough craft sales, they have professionally-made signs, full color with illustrations, a camera in a red circle crossed out, meaning, "No cameras allowed! No pictures, please!"

But the big difference between now and, say, 10 years ago, is there's a lot more cameras. And people, especially kids, who aren't shy about popping out their phone, then whipping it up to take a picture of your stuff. They don't think a thing of it! It's in their nature now! They're stupid! "My hand is permanently affixed to an iPhone camera." People used to have five fingers, now they have a sixth finger, their camera! That's what it looks like. So there we're sitting, the crafters, rolling our eyes at each other, trying to bite our tongue, and casually putting the signs a little closer to the flow of traffic. Fat lot of good it does. They don't teach reading in school anymore!

I'm sitting there, watching all this go on, and I was that close, I was about to bust. But thank God I held it in, for the most part. Because this one guy, two tables up from me, he had his fill, and he did bust. It was after noon, he hadn't eaten, thanks to being at the end of the line and only making two sales -- he paints smiley faces on jelly beans -- so he busted. And I know that's no excuse. But these brainless teenage girls were going in real close on his beans, snapping pictures of the smiles.

Well, he showed them a scowl! "Do you not see these signs? 'No photos allowed.' This isn't a photo studio, darlin'! The items you see on the tables are for sale. Otherwise, everything you see is copyrighted, my intellectual property. So no pictures, thank you!" That was a very snide 'thank you,' which really showed them, since they immediately left with a bunch of swear words barely concealed under their breath, and, incongruously, giggling. The guy was sitting there, red as a beet, and fuming. He looked around for some support and our eyes met. I gave him a thumbs up, then decided to rearrange my table.

It's been dead since then. Like some kind of cutoff point. Like maybe the girls went back and spread the word. Probably not. It's just always that way after noon. The ones who wanted something got here early. Anyone who shows up after noon is here by accident, and they don't care. To them you're just garbage blocking the halls. Except for me, I'm so far down no one generally makes it that far.

So the bottom line is, I sold only a few, less than 20. Some of those were twofers. The good news, if I'm willing to dig for good news, is I won't have to make quite as many next year, since I still have plenty of stock.

-------------------------
2011 - The Easter Craft Sale
2010 - Selling Easter Bunnies at the Shopping Center

Closing Out September

I'm closing out September with a few trifles. 30 days hath September, and today's the day it hath them!

I spent most of September on other projects -- note to self -- hence my lack of posts here.

It was actually one project, involving photography, and it's amazing how consuming it was for me. But it had a definite lifespan. I can't say I didn't see it coming, because I felt it coming as sure as anything.

Most things that I become extremely interested in like that have a lifespan. The arc is natural enough, starting with my first discovery, my first steps, a few tentative moves, then I become more interested. Soon I'm an old hand, showing what I have, in this case thinking I have a real eye for it, and I believe I do. Now I'm evaluating it, but only periodically, thinking occasionally of the vanity, yet persisting in ever new variations of participation. Midway through, I'm really able to produce, like the long distance runner. There's still enough avenues to run down, so I'm thinking I'm doing something useful, but the nagging in my mind is getting louder all the time: Why? I keep going, I double down on my efforts, I set goals and meet them, and soon I'm such an old hand it's like I've been doing it forever. I'm established, I'm even respected. But I start seeing the arc as an arc indeed and know that I'm getting toward the end. I make a resolution: I'll just be this interested in it, self limiting. Except I know that will never work. Because when I've pierced through to the full realization of the vanity -- knowing its true worthlessness -- I start casting about for something tried and true, something that does have value to me.

That is a funny paragraph, and every word is true!

The good news about a life pursuit like this is that I didn't make a large investment in it. I didn't make any commitments. There's nothing I have to be ashamed of. No one got hurt. And it was even kind of fun, while also serving as a cautionary tale to me about whatever my next consuming interest is, to look for the arc early on.

It's Me Against The Murderous Maniac

I've got to be real cagey about what I say about this matter. It seems there could be a murderous maniac on my trail.

It all started, like most terrible incidents like this do, with a road trip. I wasn't satisfied with what I could find in my own backyard, even though if I learned anything from The Wizard of Oz, it had to be that. Instead, I went out of town.

When you go out of town, especially as I did to a small town, you're just setting yourself up for trouble. The few people you run into are monitors for the rest. They're not used to strangers, but when they see one they go ballistic.

I perceived that I had quickly become the talk of the town. My vivid imagination told me that's the way it was, and naturally all my paranoia flags went up. Maybe if I hadn't stopped in at the local cafe it wouldn't have happened so fast. But in the time it takes to get a bite to eat, not only can word go out that you're in town, it gives them time to learn everything they can about you, assuming anyone there has access to the internet.

OK, so far, so good, at least I thought. I probably should back up and say why I was there. A couple months ago I got an iPod with a camera in it, so I've been having a good time taking pictures. As a guy with no demonstrable artistic talents, yet who considers himself a natural born artist, being able to push the button on a camera and have it yield a colorful picture, is a godsend.

Anyway, there I was, scouting locations for my next masterpiece, and I felt eyes on me. Eyes perhaps attached to bodies with hands attached to machetes! This is one sadistic little burg, I told myself, and I answered myself that that was a good point. So I was conducting myself cautiously, to say the least, even gingerly, with careful footfalls, prowling around in my car like a cat, stalking my prey, colorful scenes, rustic signs, rusty cans in alleys, a house in shambles, or, if luck would have it, a naked lady on a hammock.

When it comes to being killed, I like to think I'd have some premonition that it was about to happen, so I could avert it. But it happened suddenly, without warning. I saw a certain rustic thing, in part pictured above, with a metallic steering wheel and seat, hooked to a motorized vehicle used typically in farming, which I shall not name. Really big wheels in back, tiny ones on the front under the motor.

Then, and this is where danger reared its ugly head, a guy comes out of a barn. He's got what I'm picturing as big murderous eyes, a maniacal sneer, and he's wielding a big bloody machete, and I see what looks like fangs sticking out where his teeth should be. His hands are big and gnarly. His bib overalls are only fastened on one side and the other side is folded down. There's dirt on the T-shirt underneath, like maybe he used it at some time to wipe blood off his hands. His nose is breathing out smoke, like a bull in the arena. It's all I can do not to hulk out and throw a tractor at him, or at least my iPod.

Seriously, this guy was a mountain. No ordinary weapon could possibly kill him. It'd take a nuclear bomb app. If only I could get signal out here in the wild! I'm thinking, iTunes, don't fail me now! What would I give for an app like that? Up to $2.99, especially if it had at least 4 stars. But since there wasn't a signal, I decided to try non-violence. Could that possibly work? Possibly, at least long enough to get me the hell out of there.

He was murderous. He had a look in his eyes that threatened to tear me to pieces, limb from limb. And these were his exact words: "Can I help you find something?" Sounds helpful, right? But that's just code for, "What in the hell are you doing on this property, seemingly tampering with my tractor?" Real accusatory stuff! Since I couldn't nuke him, I begged off, "I'm only taking a picture of this ______ [see photo]." He said some other stuff that I couldn't make out, mostly guttural roars, foaming at the mouth, as I backed up slowly, opened my car door and got in.

I spun it out of the alley doing 40 miles an hour in reverse. Then I laid rubber on the road that probably stretched a whole mile. I imagined (and actually saw, I believe) zombies pouring out of old shuttered buildings. An old lady zombie ran into the road with an apple pie, heaving it at my car. It landed in perfect condition on the passenger seat! That was the high point of the whole experience.

But friends, this murderous maniac, the guy back at the tractor, I believe is still after me. I'm writing this as a kind of last post, in case I don't make it till tomorrow. If I don't make it, please send help! And nuke that little town ... all the way to hell and back!

Look At This Great Picture

Isn't that a great picture? Huh? Huh? What do you think? I surely deserve some praise for it, don't I? Like a lot of praise? Because I took it.

And you know what, it wasn't really that hard to accomplish. Probably for some people it'd be tricky to get it accomplished, like people who don't have an eye for it, let alone an innate knack for style. But not for me, since I have an eye for practically anything, and my innate knack for style is simply without beginning and without end.

I'm looking at it right now, even while I type, because typing for me isn't any problem; I learned the keyboard when I was in junior high school, giving me the ability to look at a picture and type at the same time. And I really like what I see. I really like it.

It kind of reminds me of Sam Spade, you know, the detective that Humphrey Bogart played? He's like all noir all the time, that is, film noir, with noir meaning dark or black in French. If you've ever seen one of these films, naturally they're done in black and white, like my picture. So what have you got? Lots of shadows, venetian blinds making crazy sick patterns all over everything as the sun streams through. There's so many shadows a mouse might be hiding in plain sight and you wouldn't see it.

Well, look at my picture, venetian blinds, check! A bench or table, a good place for a '40s detective to sit, while presumably a Cuban ceiling fan turns creakily overhead, and somewhere, I'm not going to say it's not there, there is a mouse, in one of the corners. And look at the sun streaming through. If you enlarged this son of a bitch, you'd even see the dust motes floating in the room.

It's atmospheric, if I do say so myself. I love the light dangling overhead, just the kind of light a detective would pull down when he was trying to put the screws on someone to get their confession. The very light where a gun moll, which is the word they used for their women back then, would be touching up her lipstick, since she's very finicky about lipstick. Cherry lipstick, coincidentally the same kind they found smudgy traces of on the dead man's collar!

You know what? I've been seriously taking pictures for the last month, since Aug. 1. It's true, I've taken maybe 3000 (or it could be 2000) pictures, everything in my path. I started out all nervous, like you might imagine, because I hadn't touched a camera since maybe the '70s. So I'm all hesitant, then I discovered something about myself, probably something you've known for a long time from other contexts, that I'm a born artist. With that, I loosened up.

I always wanted to be an artist. But I can't draw, can't seem to paint, not that I've really tried, don't know music, can't read it. In every way that counts, artistically speaking, I've been a big fat zero. And that's a bummer to me like you couldn't know, because I've always thought I had the talent, if only it could be borne out in actual fact.

But when it comes to photography, any idiot (which I'm not one of) can be an artist. All you have to do is find something decent to look at, aim a camera at it, and push the button. And they've made it a lot easier these days, like with an iPhone or iPod, because all the tools are built in, filters, etc. It's like a multiple choice test where none of the answers is actually wrong!

OK, picture me on the set of the above picture. I'm brooding over it for like seconds at a time. I'm thinking, "How am I going to frame this son of a bitch so it comes out something I'm proud of?" Naturally, and this is where my innate style comes into play, I'm thinking I want the window off center. The bench on the right is going to look fantastic with the sun streaming through the venetian blinds directly. So I'm thinking that's where I'll leave it. Of course the left side is going to be more in the shadows, not getting a direct sunlight hit. Which ought to be your first clue that the mouse has to be over there somewhere.

All these thoughts are running through my head, and I'm mentally calculating all the angles, my brain being close to a super computer, very fast, and only crashing ... hardly ever. I called for quiet on the set, while, with great stability in my hands, I held the iPod. Then, with everything being in perfect place, I snapped the picture. I thought I could take one more, but I like to work with one take. If you're a perfectionist from the get-go, you don't need to do it twice. I'm like the sign on the plumber's van I saw the other day, "We do it right the first time."

I got my mouse and we vacated the set. I put down a dollar on the table for the management's trouble (this was at a restaurant), and we were off.

TECHNICAL NOTES: In post production, I darkened the original picture with a cool filter I have on an app called MagicHour. The details in the original photo weren't as obscure as I wanted ultimately. A darker picture would make it a place where Sam Spade would be more comfortable. So a click of one button and it was darker, darkened to perfection.

CONUNDRUM: Of course I solely own the copyright on this picture. All rights reserved. It may not be used for any purpose without my express written consent, which I'm not bloody likely to give. Because I'm the guy who clicked the button, it's mine. Making me wonder, and this is the conundrum, if I had taken the picture with a timer, that is, without me pushing the button, would I still own the copyright? Or would I have to share credit with the camera itself? That's one for the courts to decide!